Political discourse is omnipresent in our societies since we have access to a never-ending stream of political messages through media, messages about how the outside world is governed or should be governed. Politics is basically about ideas, ideologies, visions, and arguments, conveyed by language, with which it is closely connected. It is difficult to study one aspect without taking the other into account. In other words, the different approaches (linguistics, discourse analysis, history, political and social sciences) are complementary to each other, as the starting point of analysis is different. Whereas linguistic and discourse analytical approaches have as starting point concrete textual elements and discourse practices (micro-level analyses), the political and social science approach often takes as its starting point society at a macro-structural level. Thus, while the latter gives a picture of general tendencies, the former highlights the practices of individual politicians and political parties.

The conference’s concept is to sum up, based on the assumption that knowledge and understanding of political discourse is best achieved through collaboration between the disciplines of linguistics and social sciences. Social, historical as well as linguistic perspectives will hopefully involve scholars from both the humanities and the social sciences.

Invited Plenary Speakers:

1) Patrick Charaudeau, Université Paris XIII (One of the internationally most recognized French researchers on discourse analysis. He has an important focus on media political discourse. His regional scope includes France and Latin America. His publications are on French, Spanish and Portuguese. Many of his works has been translated to Spanish and Portuguese)

2) Catalina Fuentes Rodríguez, Universidad de Sevilla. (One of the most important researchers on Pragmatics in Spain. She has done important research on argumentation in Andalusia’s parliamentary discourse; Spanish)

3) Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Université Lumière Lyon 2 (One of the internationally most recognized French researchers on Pragmatics with important research on political discourse and French election debates; French)

4) Maria Aldina Bessa Ferreira Rodrigues Marques, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal (One of the most important researchers on political discourse in Portugal; Portuguese)

5) Fredrik Uggla, Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Stockholm University. (Background in political and social sciences and an important research on election campaigns in different Latin American countries.)